Stateside Terrorism

Published: Tuesday, October 13, 1998

CLINTON AIDES are mapping an anti-terrorist plan designed to help state and local police and emergency people become better trained and better able to work in concert against threatened or actual attacks in the U.S.

As outlined by Attorney General Janet Reno, the move sounds prudent: ensuring that there is a coordinated federal effort to train and to equip state and local fire, police, medical and emergency officials to deal with terrorism at home. The plan would include anti-terrorist practice drills.

The Justice Department says a deal with the Pentagon, the National Security Council and the Federal Emergency Management Agency now makes Justice the lead agency in the effort. The domestic preparedness program has been criticized for lack of coordination among agencies, duplication in training and lack of valid threat and risk assessment.

That latter aspect - lack of a valid threat and risk assessment - is quite disturbing. We have seen time and again on the foreign scene failures by intelligence analysts to anticipate terrorist bombings of U.S. embassies and other American facilities. Gathering accurate intelligence information in other nations is admittedly difficult, but not being able to gather it at home is excusable.

States could ban to buy special gear

A special feature of what will be the new National Domestic Preparedness Office in the FBI will be a "one-stop shopping" procedure for state and local officials. It would entail cities and states producing emergency response plans for terrorist attacks to receive federal aid.

The program would also allow states and municipalities to join in buying federal equipment to detect a chemical or biological attack, and protective clothing for emergency service personnel.

The possibility that terrorists might be able to attack domestic targets with poisonous chemicals or germ-carrying weapons is especially worrisome.

The FBI in 1997 opened 68 investigations into the threatened or actual use of chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear materials. The total of similar probes launched this year already stands at 86, according to agency officials.

Those numbers make the domestic terrorist threat a clear and present danger to lives and property at home. Washington should be exploring every possible way to minimize the peril or at least blunt the effects of terrorist violence.